Jess’s Game Clearing Reviews

Release Year: 2013 System: PC Date Finished: July 12th Status: Beaten Cute little platformer! I have no nostalgia for the original NES game or either version of the cartoon, but this was still a good time. All the characters are animated beautifully and the 3D environments are pretty...though the combination of the 2 feels awkward and somewhat cheap. Music has no right to go off as hard as it does, I don't remember any of it but in the moment it's all great to listen to. The main hooks of pogo bouncing and collecting treasure feel fantastic and satisfying...though the difficulty can be really rough. On normal it feels absolutely brutal and unforgiving. With how long these levels are it feels like an utter slog to have to start from the beginning with a game over. And to start you have so few chances with just 3 lives and 3 hits each. Going to easy made the game feel infinitely more fun to me, though there's little things that can still be annoying like a weirdly big hit box...

Release Year: 2011 System: Switch Date Finished: July 6th Status: Beaten Naturally was curious to see how this was after going through the first one for play club, and man it did not disappoint. The story, characters, humor, and puzzle variety is all a massive step-up from the first game, and just highlights all the more in retrospect that the original Portal was really little more than a test for the concept and ideas. The story has a handful of great twists and turns, the writing is *exponentially* more funny while simultaneously adding bits of lore around GLaDOS and Aperture Science. And the new mechanics for puzzles are incredibly fun, ESPECIALLY the gels. As if all that wasn't enough the co-op campaign is absolutely worth going through as well, it doesn't feel at all like a last minute addition. There's as much thought and care put into the mode as the story, with the puzzles being built around 2 pairs of portals going utterly wild. Even if the first game left you a bi...

 Release Year: 2007  System: Switch Date Finished: June 30th Status: Beaten Very neat puzzle game! It didn't hit me as hard as I may have expected given it's status, but it was still a great time. I can imagine the portals being mindblowing at the time, and even today they're super interesting and fun to mess and all the potential puzzles they bring. The presentation is fairly simple but it works. I will say though...I really wish there was some better balance between navigating the corridors of the facility and doing the test chambers. After a bit that structure in the later parts gets kinda boring with not much getting mixed up or new being introduced mechanically. And even before that, I was surprised at how few puzzle mechanics there was for the test chambers. They just milked the small handful for all they were worth and I wish there was more variety to spice things up. Beyond that though the dialogue is utterly hilarious and the story, albeit straightforward, works we...